Public talk: Dziga Vertov, or There and Back

DESCRIPTION

The discussion will focus on Dziga Vertov, one of the key figures in the history of Soviet avantgarde film. This public talk with film historians continues the public program of the VOKS kinema Research Laboratory.

In the second half of the 1920s, the Soviet Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (VOKS) saw the films by Dziga Vertov and his pupils and fellow kinoki [«film eye”] filmmakers very differently from most Soviet critics and viewers. While in the Soviet Union Man with a Movie Camera was condemned for its indifference to politics and aestheticism, VOKS used it as an ideological weapon abroad. In 1929, Vertov—for the first time in his life— traveled abroad to show his film at the exhibition Kino und Foto in Stuttgart.

One of the goals of VOKS was to introduce foreign audiences to the best examples of Soviet art, which contributed both to the prestige of the USSR abroad and the strengthening of its connections with leftwing intellectuals. For Vertov, the trip to Germany became an inspiration to continue his work: in Europe, he felt that leftfield creativity was not only not criticized but in fact warmly welcomed.

The speakers will discuss the latest discoveries related to Dziga Vertov’s later life and work, the restoration of his cinematic legacy, and his role in the work of VOKS.

SPEAKERS

Kirill Goryachok is a film historian and critic, a Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, author of the books Life Caught Off Guard: The Making of Man with a Movie Camera, Kinoki: Dziga Vertov’s School, and Eyes to the World: Dziga Vertov. Poems, and host of the channel on film archives Bolshoi Pudovkin.

Nikolai Izvolov is a film historian, a restorer of lost films, including by Dziga Vertov, and author of the book The Phenomenon of Film: History and Theory.

Maxim Semenov is a film critic, historian, and journalist specializing in the history of Russian film from the 1920s to the early 1930s and author and editor of videos on the history of Russian film at KinoPoisk. He has written for the magazines Séance and Iskusstvo kino and the project Arzamas.

Stanislav Dedinsky has a master’s degree in art history and is a film historian, journalist, and publisher who studies early Russian film and animation. He is the editor-in-chief of Kinoartel 1895 and course author and lecturer at Industria School of Film and Television. He previously worked as editor-in-chief at the magazine Iskusstvo kino.